In the mood for more Ninja Turtle action after celebrating the 20th anniversary of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, I was on the prowl for something to wash down that early ‘90s cheeseball goodness.
Luckily, 4Kids Entertainment has created the perfect present for fans of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — regardless of which version of the ass-kicking reptiles you grew up with.
A made-for-TV animated movie released last fall, Turtles Forever is an absolute blast to watch.
The movie is a sequel to the 4Kids 2003 animated series — a reboot of everybody’s favorite turtles in a half-shell that saw the mutants animated a bit closer to their ninja roots. Darker in tone and more mature in execution, last decade’s animated series lasted seven seasons before ending early last year.
When footage of the Turtles’ recurring punching bags, the Purple Dragon gang, is shown on the news and it appears that the hoodlums are fighting giant anthropomorphic reptiles, the Turtles’ sensei, Splinter, cries foul.
Splinter is upset at his sons’ carelessness in being caught on tape — the only problem is, the Turtles all have alibis. But if Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo weren’t the Ninja Turtles caught on video fighting the Purple Dragons, who were those masked reptiles anyway?
In a twist of Crisis on Infinite Earths-proportions, it seems the Ninja Turtles’ doppelgangers are none other then the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from the 1987 animated series. Thrown from their own reality into the Nu-Turtles’, the ‘80s TMNT are hopelessly out of place.
In a pitch-perfect parody of the embarrassingly dated nature of the ‘80s Ninja Turtles cartoon, these blasts-from-the-pasts spend all their time craving pizza, spouting ridiculously undesirable surfer slang and making the worst puns this side of Freddy Krueger.
As the Nu-Turtles attempt to help their ‘80s counterparts return home, trouble ensues when it becomes apparent that the classic TMNT weren’t the only ones to breach dimensions. ‘80s TMNT perpetual troublemakers Shredder, Krang, Bebop and Rocksteady have appeared in the ‘00s Turtles’ universe — towing along that villainous headquarters/action figure playset that only rich kids owned, the Technodrome.
Awe-struck by the promises of this new universe, Shredder and Krang seek help in conquering the ‘00s TMNT’s homeworld — namely by calling on the new universe’s version of Shredder, a tiny pink alien terror that resides in a deadly robotic exoskeleton.
Having not really seen last decade’s TMNT cartoon, I was a little taken back by the fact that the ‘00s Shredder was in fact more akin to my own childhood’s go-to-alien conquer, Krang.
That said, one of my favorite aspects of this made-for-TV movie were the scenes between the two generations of bad guys. As the two Shredders interacted, the cartoon masterfully showcased the disparities in tone between the two versions of TMNT cartoons.
While ‘80s Shredder was a sniveling sleazeball who surrounded himself with explosion-prone robots and bumbling mutant henchmen, the current cartoon’s Shredder is a unstoppable douchebag of evil — truly a force of destruction.
The cartoon piles on the action high but the movie’s highlight is the humor found in the paring the two versions of the TMNT. It’s only in retrospect that you realize how silly and mind-numbingly idiotic the TMNT cartoon from the ‘80s was. When seen in contrast with the kick butt, crack jokes later Turtles from last decade’s animated series, the Turtles of my youth were even more pathetic.
Watching Turtles Forever is an experience akin to traveling back in time and making fun of your friends when they were paste eating, nose picking rugrats. Part of you feels guilty at mocking the under-developed but hey — your guilt doesn’t make it any less funny.
Besides mashing up the ‘80s and ‘00s Ninja Turtles, the series also includes shout outs to a couple of other Turtle incarnations — including appearances by Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2: The Secret of the Ooze bad guys Tokka and Rahzar and a very special cameo appearance by a version of the Ninja Turtles that are splitting images of the team’s original 1984 comic book appearance. These Frank Miller-quoting tough-ass Turtles are even animated in black and white!
Whether you are a fan of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon or the more recent 4Kids incarnation, you owe it to yourself to check out Turtles Forever. It is, without a doubt, the most fun I’ve ever had watching animated Ninja Turtles.
Unfortunately, a DVD release has not yet been scheduled. But that’s why I’m writing this column.
If Turtles Forever sounds interesting and you aren’t lucky enough to have a recorded broadcast of the cartoon lying around, demand 4Kids release the film on DVD and Blu-ray. With the sheer marketing cash cow that the Ninja Turtles are, I am sure the movie will eventually find its way to home video. The more fans demand it, though, the sooner it will be available. Raise your slice of pizza and let your voices be heard.
Turtle power!
As a kid, Robert Saucedo went as a Ninja Turtle for Halloween four years in a row. Follow him on Twitter @robsaucedo2500.
